Total photo overload ! :0) and new family members :0)

 Well, Good evening lovely people :0)

How are you all this dreary Friday?  Hope all is fine and dandy in your world :o)

Now, you must all know by now about the little squabbles I keep having with blogger. So this week, I've tried to beat him at his own game, and nearly every spare moment I've had, I've been trying to upload photos onto a blog post..( when you eventually get to the end of this post, you're going to think that I have an enormous amount of 'spare moments' in my life lol :)

So, this post is chock full of photos that I've been wanting to show you, but blogger hasn't let me. They're nothing important at all, and if you want to stop reading/looking now, you won't be missing much. Or on the other hand, if you want to carry on and have a nose, I suggest you nip and get a nice cup 'o tea now :0)

In my last blog posts, I've had a bit of a whine at the lack of flowers in this new garden. Well, we got up on Tuesday morning (which was beautifully bright and sunny here,) to be greeted by a whole tree full of beautiful pink blossom :0)

Next up are the continued photos of my very unsuccessful fair :)

The lady below did knitting, and she made some gorgeous hats...

And she also knitted childrens shrugs and lovely handbags...I have to say they were the nicest knitted handbags and shrugs I have ever seen. The attention to detail was second to none...

I can't remember if I showed you this jewellery and bag stall...

Next up, was the handmade card lady..

And this lovely lady had driven about 35-40 miles to get to the fair and not sell anything!.....

Goodness, I'm glad my youngest daughter didn't come to the fair, she would have wanted all these sock monkeys. The lady made them herself, and she didn't sell any either :(

And lastly, I totally resisted temptation.....

Now, here's the other photos of the rag crochet bag I finished at the begining of the week...



And this photo of it...see that big, hhuuuggeee box my bag is sitting on (notice the crocheted scarf  that I'm currently working on poking out :0) I always seem to have one of these on the go at the moment)  well, I'm not allowed to see in that box...OOoooooo, how exciting....It came on Tueday, my hubby had ordered it, and it's my BIRTHDAY present.... I couldn't believe it! (It's not my birthday till May) What d'you reckon's in it? Well, I know what I would have liked , but I didn't think (well, I know we don't) have the funds available for that at the moment, so I was so surprised when this arrived, and now I feel like a little kid, just wanting to get in that box ! lol   And, it's kinda the size for what I would have liked too...Ooooo.. lol

Still, you'll just have to wait the same as I have to :0)

Next up is the little Plum Tomatoe seeds I planted. I planted them five days ago -just before this piccy-, and this morning they were up already..yummy :0)

This is one of the triangles (do the triangles have an actual name in their own right?) of my youngest daughters birthday bunting...

This is another made from one of her favourite tops from when she was younger :0)

And this is the whole set of bunting.. The other fabric is what Clara kindly sent me with the PIF that I won from her a while ago. My youngest adored this piece of fabric, so I saved it to make something for her :0)

I was going to put her name on the bunting, but i'll have to do that at a later date as I ran out of time :0)

This pot holder has been newly made, but not by me...

I found it just waiting on the shelf for me at my local Charity Shop (CS) for 50p. I just had to buy it and love it :)

I got these there too for £2.00.  I've already got one, but I thought the girls might like to try Knifty Knitting too :0)

I adore the pomander that I got a few weeks back. It's the first one that I've found out and about in the charity shops. I love them. I fell in love with them at the handmade and vintage fair that I went to last year. One of the sellars had a huge box full of them, and the all the colours and little floral decorations were divine...

Then I found one of my own :0)

It's funny, but the first rubber stamp I ever bought (they were very expensive all those years ago...) was a little tiny sweet violet....and this pomander just reminded me of it :0)

This is a lovely little Crown Devon vase that I spied in the CS for 50p

Now next up, get ready for the Aaaahh factor......

These are the newest members of our family....

Two little cute Dwarf Roborovski hamsters called Nibbles and Honey. They are only about 6cm-8cm long, and they are so tiny and cute ..(yes, the pictures above are both of them!)

We eventually gave in to wanting/pester power to our youngest daughter (it was her twelth birthday yesterday ) and bought her these two cuties. She's wanted a pet since she was about five. The other two haven't been that bothered about pets, but she's kept on, so I hope it's not just a phase :)

At birthday time and Christmas, (and any other special occasions) we have 'buffet' to eat in our house. It's our kinda tradition. I spend the day in the kitchen (or the day before) and then we have all the old fashioned things like vol-u-vents, cheese and pineapple, mini sausages (veggie of course) posh (just for Jennie :0)

triangle sandwiches (we call them posh, cos' for some reason I always cut our sarnies into squares) and salads, and crisps and cold pizza...well, you get the picture...(or you will if you scroll down :0)

Oh, this cake caused me grief I can tell ya!   (but that's another story ;0)

This is a picture of our Wollemi Pine. It's my favorite green tree, and we've had it since it was little. It comes from Australia, and was recently discovered (a few years back) as a new species.

These are the lovely red shoots of the peony bush that was here when we moved in...looking hopeful :0)

And that's it...

YOOOOHOOOO.....wakey, wakey....

You can wake up now :0)

Well, I hope I didn't bore you too much.

I'll be back on Monday to see how many of you want to do the Pay it Forward so far it's just two of you, but if any more want to join in, it's not big items that you have to gift out, just spreading abit of happiness, that's all :0)

So don't forget to enter on my last post  (or this one, just say you'd like to enter.)

Now you all take care, have a good weekend, enjoy the sunshine (hopefully) and take it easy :0)

Love Donna xxx

Hello lovely people :0)

How are you this sunny Sunday afternoon? (this should read Monday now lol)

I hope you're all fine and dandy :0)

I seem to be going longer and longer between blog posts lately.....

But I'm here now, and I've brought you all the details of my Paying-it-Forward bloggy business..

I actually managed to pick a few sprigs of flowers from the garden the other day..

I picked some forsythia and the only three daffodils....

I've also been busy crocheting...
From these fabric strips (kindly cut by hubby :0) )

I made a new rag crochet bag...

I'm sorry, but blogger won't let me load any more photos (it's taken me two days to get these ones on!!)

Is anyone else having trouble with blogger at the moment, or is it just me?

 I also crocheted a 'fancy' scarf for one of my daughters teaching assistants -this teaching assistant is amazing, and we so appreciate all she does for our daughter- it's her birthday and 

she always wears greens and rose colours, so I had this gorgeous 80%wool yarn that is so cosy, and I thought she'd like it.
(no photo...naughty blogger)

I'm a lot poorer (£ wise) this month as it's my youngest daughters birthday on Thursday, (12 years...how did she get to that without me noticing? lol) and my poor old car needed £400. worth of work to get him through his MOT. 

Now, my Pay-it-Forward...

To enter (OOoooo, I hope some of you lovely bloggers do enter !) all you have to do is leave a comment on this post asking to be entered. If you don't ask, I won't enter you, so don't worry if you're just leaving a comment, you won't get roped into anything by mistake :0)

It's a pif for THREE people, so I will then choose three of you from my furry hat, and send you the lovely little gifts :0)

Now, I'm doing this pif a bit different from others I've seen, in the fact that I'm sending out surprise gifts.

You will get a sewn gift, a crochet gift and a mystery gift :0)

They're just little ones, but you will get lovely little surprises through your door to open. And then you can pass on the bloggy goodness..right?  :0)
This pif is open to the world :0)

Now I've finally managed to load some photos (one day after I started this post!!) I've got to head off to Karate (not me the children lol) .

I was making bunting today for my daughter too, but I'll have to try and load some pictures in the week before I do my writing !

So that's it for today folks, short and sweet. (well, short for me :0))

I'll be ending the pif entries next Monday evening, so you've all got plenty of time to enter :0)

Take care lovely people,
Speak soon,
Love Donna xxxxxx

Ps. I think I'm addicted to making those little dotty, o, bracket smiley faces...sorry lol but at least you all know I'm sending you smiles :0)  -or frowns lol xxxxx

Phew...! Home at last..:0)

Well, hello lovely bloggers :0)

I hope you've all had a splendiferous, happy week :0)

The hospital stay is all over now. I can't say and done with, cos' we still have to moniter the medication, but at least her body didn't react to the new medication in a bad way (yet! ) I know, I know. I should be more positive, and I was quite positive 'till one consultant said to me " Well, you know how it is, we can't expect miracles!"

This is my daughters 14th anti-epileptic drug in nearly 6 years, and quite honestly with the side effects this drug carries, I don't think we would have tried it if the hospital hadn't been so confident it would help. So to hear him then say that, was a bit deflating to say the least :(

Still, we can only try  :0)

I managed to get quite a lot of crafting done during my stay which was the one bonus of being in hospital:0)

The downside was I put on one and a half pound during my few days which I'm a bit gutted about, as I've lost almost a stone since 3rd January, so I must work harder to make up for it!

This is what our room (well my side of the room!) looked like most of the time while we were there..

As well as this crafty stuff, I had several bags in the boot of the car! Unfortunately I know what hospitals are like, and I didn't want us to run out of things to do!

See my new wavy stripe crochet blanket in my basket? I bought the pattern from Lucy who has the most colourful blog you can imagine!

I'm making it candy colours as it's for my youngest daughter :0)

Now, see the 'check' blue and red thing in the lower middle of the picture? That's a new design I'm working on for my Etsy shop which I'll show you next week (I forgot to photograph it this morning!)

And what the blue/red thing is laying on is one of my new Needle cases that I have been beavering away on!

 (I think that a certain Rosey person may like those! -'cept I know she doesn't sew! :0)

They will start going in my Etsy shop next week too, so I will show you the photo's when I've set them up!

(But if you look at the first photo of Souffle down below, you can see the top of my first needlecase -which is mine) 

***

The photo below is of  'Souffle' the duck from the Popcorn range. D'you know him? 

When I tell you the story of this duck, please don't leave me comments telling me what a mean Mother I am! I do feel really guilty if that helps!

This duck came in a kit that I bought from the home shopping channel QVC 5years ago. (almost exactly!) we got it to give to my youngest daughter on her 7th birthday in the middle of march 2006. 

So, we gave her the kit, and I duly knitted the pieces of the duck. ( by duly, I mean it took me two years to finish knitting the bits)

Then, it has taken me a further THREE YEARS to make the feet, beak and little tag, stuff it, and sew it up!

I presented it to her at dinner last night!

She said 'At last!'

I know, that's really mean, especially as I spend most my evenings and nights crafting!

He was worth waiting for though yes?  LOL

Have any of you ever taken a long time to finish a crafty project?

Below is a picture of one of my daughters dinners that she had in hospital..

Just had to show you the food at Poole Hospital, as my daughter really likes it! We had a choice of two hospitals, and she chose that one to go into as she likes the food!

This meal was vegetable chow-mein, salad, orange juice, stewed apple and ice-cream!

****

A little while ago, I entered a pif with Clara.

Last week, i was lucky enough to recieve my gift of a beautiful sky blue crocheted scarf.

But not only did I receive my scarf, but she also sent me lots of extra little gifts which were so gorgeous!

I received fabrics, crochet patterns, lace, a beautiful chrysanth card.

And the most gorgeous scrummy buttons!

OOOooo look at that crochet goodness.....

Thankyou so much Clara for my beautiful goodies!
I so appreciate them, and they couldn't have arrived at a more timely moment to give me a lift :0)
I shall be forwarding the Pay-It-Forward goodness at the end of this month when I've decided exactly what to pay forward.
I have to pick three pif people, so when it comes up, don't forget to enter!

Well, that's it for now folks. I'll try and post more often so that my posts are shorter lol.
Thankyou all for reading to the end of this ramble.
And a big thankyou to all of you who've left your lovely supportive comments for me :0)
They do help tremendously you know.  Thankyou. :0)

Have a great weekend everyone.
Take care,
Love Donna xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx